


Three Hexes

by Willa Shakespeare (AnonEhouse)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 23:52:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Willa%20Shakespeare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake's 7 was a dystopian 'verse where if you weren't one of Blake's crew* and you were alive at the end of an episode, it was a bit of a surprise.  I like happy endings. I like figuring out ways to make unhappy endings at least <i>hopeful</i>, but still in keeping with the original source. I did this so often (sometimes on other folk's fic with prior permission) on the Adult B7 list that I was awarded the title: President of the Happy Ending Expediters.</p><p>And one day I was challenged to HEX three episodes wherein one-shot characters didn't make it to the credits.</p><p>  <i>"On a good day, I am sure you could resurrect the personnel of Fosforon, the population of Auron and everyone who blew up on XK72 (please! Renor? Please?)"</i></p><p>Challenge accepted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Savior

**Author's Note:**

> * Actually being one of Blake's crew didn't really make you safe, either. Or being a ship, or a computer, or pretty much anything.

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

"There _has_ to be a warning, Jenna! There has to be."

Liberator started out of orbit.

Avon muttered something to himself, along the lines of 'What were their chances against the Federation when Fearless Leader had been defeated by a microbe'. Blake usually ignored Avon's under-the-breath remarks considering them merely bait for an argument, but at the moment, Blake felt an argument was just what he wanted. He'd _liked_ Dr. Bellfriar and his assistant, Gambrill, and keenly felt his failure to save them.

"What was that, Avon? Share the results of your genius with us all, why don't you?"

When Avon's head snapped up in surprise, Blake regretted responding quite as forcefully as he had. But there was no admitting weakness with Avon. "After all, I'm sure _you_ would have thought of a solution," Blake added.

Avon's eyes narrowed. And, as often happened when Blake got him angry and demanded an answer, Avon gave him one. "Orac reads computers. The formula for the anti-serum is in Dr. Bellfriar's computer."

Blake inclined his head. "As Bellfriar said, a little late for Fosforon, but in plenty of time to protect _yourself_ , in case you've caught it."

"You were down there, too," Avon said.

"And so was I!" Vila wailed. "Can you fight later, and get us cured, now?"

"Wait," Blake said, lifting his head in sudden hope. "Is there a chance we could save any of the people on Fosforon?"

Avon shrugged. "Ask Orac. Perhaps some of the last victims..." Avon was halted in mid-word as Blake grabbed him by the arm and shoved him at Orac. "Do it!" Blake snapped. "Jenna, back to Fosforon. We're going to try, at least."

***

Vila was acutely unhappy, despite his anti-contamination suit and the presence of anti-serum in his bloodstream. Blake had flung a packet of bright red, self-injecting, pre-loaded anti-serum patches at him and teleported him down to Fosforon along with the rest of them over his loud objections. He wasn't sure if Blake had used the same tactics against Orac and the medical computers, but they had produced the medicine in minutes and explained how to best administer it under the circumstances.

There was no time to decide who was still salvagable, or to move the corpses, or anything other than race down the corridors, lift the chins of the bodies and slap a patch over the carotid artery. Some of the chins wouldn't lift, but Vila slapped a patch on the face, then. Even if they were dead, that saved someone else from wasting precious seconds on them.

"Some of them left the base," he told Blake when they happened to cross paths. "I found murdered guards at the exit and the doors wide open."

Blake looked grim. "If there's time, when we're done here, we'll look for them. In the meantime, I'll locate the command center and see if there's an external announcement system. They might still be close enough to hear me tell them about the cure."

Attracted by their voices, or the sixth sense he seemed to have where Blake was involved, Avon came up behind them and said, "But will they believe? They last they knew, they were ordered to remain at their posts and die, heroically. Not surprising that they fled. The universe is lamentably lacking in heroes these days."

"Good thing we have you, then," Blake commented, then took off at a run for the center of the base.

Avon looked at Vila and his expression was quite readable through the clear face-plate of his protective suit. "The Federation heard distress calls from Fosforon. They could be here before we finish." Avon lifted his wrist and looked at his teleport bracelet. "Well?"

Vila shook his head. "You're right, I know you're right. But I can't just leave Blake and the others." Vila gave Avon a shrewd look. "Can we?"

Avon pursed his lips. "I am surrounded by fools," he growled, tossing down an empty 'page' of injectors, and unrolling the next sheet. He took off at a awkward run down a corridor that hadn't been marked as cleared. Vila smiled to himself, then took the next corridor.

***

"So, the damage _wasn't_ irreversible. Well, I suppose my brain wasn't functioning too well at that point. Can't say as I'm sorry to be proved wrong." Dr. Bellfriar smiled at Blake from his bed in _Liberator's_ medical unit. "Remarkable, that Orac-computer of yours, Blake. Do you think your computer friend, Avon, would mind if I used it for some research?"

Blake smiled back at the doctor. "Later. For now, just rest." Blake's face went grim. "I'm sorry we weren't able to save more of your people." The mad rush to save them had an added urgency when Orac informed them that the Federation had authorized the use of planet-busters in cases of space-plague ever since the Caserus swamp fever epidemic, which had killed millions. They'd loaded the survivors on board and fled, bare hours before the Federation arrived to vaporize Fosforon.

Bellfriar said, "You saved Gambrill. That would have been enough." He turned his head and looked at the sleeping innocence of his assistant's face in the next bed in the make-shift hospital ward. _Liberator_ hadn't been designed for so many casualties at once, and they'd had to move in extra beds and adapt other equipment to serve as biological monitors. "Saving me and the other twenty was a bonus."

Blake looked at Bellfriar. "Ah. Gambrill is special to you."

"As your Avon is to you, unless I am greatly mistaken."

Blake laughed ruefully. "No, you're not mistaken. But it would be too much of a risk to tell him."

"Would it really?" Bellfriar said, and slipped into a deep, healing sleep.

Blake rubbed his chin. "I think it would," he said, softly. Turning away from Bellfriar's bed, Blake stiffened. "Avon. How long have you been there?"

"Too long, apparently," Avon said ruefully. He deposited a piece of electronic equipment carefully on a table, and began deftly hooking it into the monitoring systems.

"Yes, well, I'm sorry if you were embarrassed, but there's no need to be."

"That's true," Avon replied. He made a few adjustments to the machine, then looked up at Blake. "We're both exhausted."

"Not that exhausted," Blake said, refusing to hide behind that too-easy excuse. "I meant it."

"Oh, I don't doubt that." Avon stepped forward, until they were almost touching. "What _I_ meant was, that we're too exhausted to explore the fullest possibilities of your statement." And Avon put one hand behind Blake's head, bringing him down the necessary couple of inches for the kiss he aimed at Blake's lips to be successful.

After several minutes, they separated. "Tomorrow," Blake said. "My quarters, when you've come off-watch."

Avon looked at Blake suspiciously. "You seem to have recovered from your surprise with remarkable alacrity."

"It's a gift," Blake said, smiling. "All Fearless Leaders have it." He grinned at Avon, and left the medical unit, whistling.


	2. Buildup

Kayn yelled, "Damn your neutrality!" at Farron, then shouted into the com unit, "Get me weaponry!"

Farron was furious, too. "How dare you! I'm in command of this base."

"You have forfeited that command, Farron, you gutless nothing."

A male voice replied over the com-unit, "Weaponry."

Farron shouted, "Stop that, I tell you! Take no orders..." and tried to push Kayn away from the com.

Kayn's eyes were wild. "You struck my hand!" He choked Farron, then hit him over the head, and stood there, staring at his hands.

"Weaponry?" came from the com, but Kayn didn't answer.

***

"What the hell's going on, Dave?" the man in greasy engineering overalls said to his companion.

"I dunno, Lenny, but I'm not taking any chances. Someone calls for weaponry from the commander's office, and there's shouting, and then _NOTHING_ , well _something's_ wrong." He began flipping switches. "Warm up Bertha."

"If you're wrong, we're both in trouble for wasting the power." But Lenny was already adjusting dials and turning on the external monitors. "Holy shit. That's one huge ship."

Dave grunted, "But that one's going away from us. Look at those damn pursuit ships! The idiots are trying to take out the big one, and we're right in the path of the bolts! Fire up Bertha! NOW!" He flipped on the com and yelled into it, "Farron! Plasma bolt bearing directly on XK seventy two. It's going to hit us. Instructions, please. Farron! Farron! Farron!"

Lenny slammed a lever down so hard that it broke off level with the panel. There was a tremendous rumbling vibration, as Bertha 'spread her skirts' and enveloped the station in a powerful force field that sought out moving objects/ forces and turned their energies (whether kinetic, electric, nuclear or supra-plasmic) back on themselves. On the monitors, all that was visible was a blaze of white light, but to an external observer the inversion of the plasma bolts refracted fractional images of the space station in an effect guaranteed to make the station appear to be destroyed, shattered into flaming bits.

As the energy dissipated, the monitor's overloaded receptors reset, and Dave and Lenny watched as the huge white ship left, followed by the pursuit ships.

Lenny collapsed into a chair, and Dave clung to the back of it for a long moment, watching until they were sure it was over. Then Dave shook his head and punched a different com-button. "Security. This is Weaponry, sorry about the shake-up, but we were about to be atomised. Send someone to check on the commander, will you?"

Lenny said, "Dave?"

"Yes."

"I broke Bertha." Lenny held up the snapped-off lever.

"That's all right, Lenny. I'll pay for it."

"Thanks, Dave. Dave?"

"Yes, Lenny."

"I could really use a drink, Dave."

"I'll pay for that, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Renor didn't find out about the danger until it was all over, and he was treating Farron for his injuries. Kayn was catatonic, but no one ever liked him anyway.
> 
> The station specialized in Space Medicine _and_ Weapons. Which seems an odd mix, but there you go.


	3. The Elders of Auron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old people being awesome.

Franton's grandmother dropped a stitch in her knitting when the first announcement came through. "We aren't to panic? A disease which kills the youngest first? The future of Auron, dying?" She tossed the knitting to one side, got up, and her seeing-eye feline came to her side. "Zulie, we're going to the city." The big cat purred as her harness was buckled on.

The hallway of the Central Auron Communal Habitat for the Elderly was crowded, and Zulie had difficulty guiding the thin woman. After a few moments, the woman signalled her furry companion to halt. She raised her voice and announced, "Our people need us. We are going to the city."

"But what can we do, Esme?" A man in a motorized chair asked.

"Whatever it takes to save our people. I will go to the cloning labs. There were lines of medical research abandoned when the isolationists had their way. My computers will still have the information. We will do what we can. Explore all possibilities, however remote."

No one argued. None of them were telepathic or in particularly good physical shape, but they knew where their duty lay. The CACHE had been designated for the retirement of the elite, and Esme's force wasted no time organizing themselves.

***

An elder squad pulled Zelda out of the rubble still weeping for the deaths of Servalan's babies. They gave her first-aid and then rushed her to Esme, who was organizing a salvage effort for the computers' core memory.

Zelda was only semi-coherent, but Esme's no nonsense attitude helped her pull herself together enough to explain about Servalan's plot, and _Liberator's_ attempted assistance. "Call your sister," Esme said. She grasped Zelda's bruised hands, gently. "I know it will be difficult, but you _must_."

Zelda nodded. She concentrated, and Esme felt the young woman's grip tighten and then relax. "Cally heard," Zelda whispered, and then fainted.

***

Avon told his crew, "Cally will stay with us. We are closer to her than they are. Besides, a nursery of five thousand, would you want to go with them?"

Cally staggered onto the flight deck, interrupting the laughter of her friends. Everyone except Avon had the grace to look embarrassed by their cheerfulness immediately following the death of her planet.

Avon simply said, "You should be resting."

Cally shook her head. "Zelda is alive."

"A dream," Avon told her. "What you wish were true. You felt her die."

"No. I felt great pain, and then nothing. Zelda was unconscious, but she did not die."

"We have to go back for her," Tarrant said.

Avon frowned. "She chose to remain."

Cally said, "Avon. It is not just Zelda. I only had a momentary contact, but I am sure there are others, alive."

Vila and Dayna looked at Avon. Vila said, "You can't just leave them to die."

"I'd love to spoil more of Servalan's 'glorious' victory," Dayna added. "Wouldn't you?"

Avon spread his hands. "All right. I suppose Franton and Pater could use the extra help, but at the slightest sign that the Federation has returned, we will leave. Is that understood?"

***

"You are the leader?" Avon asked, looking down at a diminutive, purple-haired elderly woman guided by a long-haired, black cat half the size of _Liberator's_ flight-deck couch. With the exception of the badly-injured Zelda, whom Cally was treating for shock before attempting to teleport her, the rest of the people gathered around the wreckage of the cloning facility were the same vintage as the woman with the cat.

"It seems so," Esme replied when no one else spoke. "I am Esme Franton."

"Fine." Avon glanced around, mentally counting heads. "It will take a little while to bring you all up on _Liberator_. There are only enough teleport bracelets to take thirty or so at a time. It will be uncomfortable, but the life-support wil be adequate for the journey to Kaarn."

Esme frowned. "We did not ask you to return in order to evacuate _us_."

Avon sighed. "All right, you want to be martyrs. Who would you like evacuated in your place?"

"No one. We require your help to save the Auronar."

"That's impossible," Avon said, exasperated. "Our medical unit will be strained nearly to its limit merely in curing your present group."

Esme shook her head. "The answer lies in this computer." She waved her hand towards a still-smoking heap of scorched metal and melted plastics. "Extract the memory-core, and allow me access to your computers. My research was nearly complete when it was 'rendered obsolete' by Auron's supposedly aseptic condition."

"How could you have done research on a a disease which did not yet exist?" Avon asked.

"I created a meta-virus. It cannot reproduce itself in healthy cells, but any abnormality allows it access. As any other virus, it invades cells, uses them to recreate itself multifold, and then it destroys the cell. Provided enough undamaged tissue remains, it should cure any cellular disease."

"Interesting. If feasible."

It took Avon very little time to locate the memory-core, but removing it from the slag without damage was a challenge. Orac retrieved the information with less fuss than usual, because it was curious, and it remained curious long enough to complete Esme's research, and give her the genetic blue-print for the organism.

"I can't do the work, obviously," Esme said, after discussing with Orac which common, benign microorganism could most readily be restructured. "The initial genetic manipulation must be done manually, with micro-manipulators. Who among your crew has the most steady hands?"

"I think that's your cue, Vila," Tarrant said. He was exhausted from helping to shift through the rubble, scavenging equipment that would be needed to mass-produce the completed cure.

"Better than digging through the dirt," Vila replied. He brushed off his hands and said, "Um, Esme's Universal Remedial Cure-All isn't _dangerous_ , is it?"

"Not if you follow the genetic chart precisely," Esme told him.

"And if I make a mistake?"

Avon smiled. "You'll mutate into a bug-eyed-monster. An improvement, no doubt."

"Ha. Very funny." Vila looked at Esme, then over at the group of old people scrabbling with determination at the wreckage of their planet. "All right."

***

The patched-together force-incubation equipment wheezed, bubbled and squealed, but it worked. Dayna would have been insulted if it hadn't, as she had worked quite hard on it. It made a change from designing guns and she rather enjoyed herself.

Vast quantitites of Eureka (Vila's name stuck, but was shortened for convenience) were produced, then mixed into a suitable transmission medium and loaded onto crop-sprayers. Tarrant and everyone capable of handling a flier took them up and flooded the atmosphere with a heavy, penetrating mist that rolled over Auron's quiet cities and into any area that wasn't hermetically sealed.

***

"Many have died, but Auron as a people will live." Esme's eyes filled with tears. She wiped at them. "Forgive an old woman her sentiment, Avon." In the weeks that the _Liberator_ crew had stayed, Esme had become familiar with all of them and knew how uncomfortable emotions made Avon.

"Understandable," Avon replied. "You are tired."

"Oh, no. I _was_ tired, but never again. There's too much to do. We can't stay. It would only incite that creature to return." She sighed. "It will be difficult to convince everyone, but we must repair the old space-vessels and scatter the Auron-seed so that no one madwoman can ever come so close to destroying all of us again."

"There will be a home for many on Kaarn," Franton said. She had recruited Zelda, and many of the CACHE who had lost their entire family, to travel to Kaarn aboard _Liberator_ , but Esme was determined to remain until all the sick had recovered, and could be persuaded to leave.

"Kaarn will be _one_ new home of the Auronar, but there will be others," Esme told Franton. She held out her hands, one to her granddaughter and the other to Avon, who took it after a slight hesitation. "We will remember the _Liberator_ and her crew." Her large silver eyes seemed to brighten as she said, in a suddenly deep and resonant voice, "Remember, Kerr Avon, if ever you require sanctuary, for whatever reason, any of the New Auron worlds will defend you to the last of us." Her hands tightened, then opened.

Avon rubbed at his hand, then said, "Yes, well, that's a comforting thought, I'm sure, but we must be on our way now. Franton, teleport up once you've said your farewells." He lifted his wrist. "Cally, teleport me now."

After Avon vanished, Franton looked at Esme. "Granny? Another vision?"

Esme smiled. "The Auronar always pay our debts."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yeah, the end is a set-up for a fix-it that Avon will eventually need.


End file.
